It’s easy for Australians to feel helpless in wanting to help asylum seekers. Bridge makes it so simple and funds go directly into the hands of those that need them.
Benjamin Law, Bridge Ambassador
It’s easy for Australians to feel helpless in wanting to help asylum seekers. Bridge makes it so simple and funds go directly into the hands of those that need them.
Benjamin Law, Bridge Ambassador
Bridge makes it easy to make a difference
They are desperate for support with rent and to feed their families.
We help people seeking asylum in Australia as they apply for protection.
Bridge makes it easy to make a difference
They are desperate for support with rent and to feed their families.
We help people seeking asylum in Australia as they apply for protection.
They escaped persecution but now face destitution
Whether sweating on their application or fighting deportation, they might have a room but precious little else.
It wasn’t much but now they don’t even have that
Bridge can’t just stand by. Care to stand with us?
Our government is stripping emergency assistance from thousands of asylum seekers living hand-to-mouth in Australia.
It wasn’t much but now they don’t even have that
Bridge can’t just stand by. Care to stand with us?
Our government is stripping emergency assistance from thousands of asylum seekers living hand-to-mouth in Australia.
Bridge is your chance to show a friendly hand in a ‘foreign’ land
By definition an asylum seeker is someone ‘out of their country and not holding a permanent visa while awaiting assessment of their status’.
Bridge clients are tremendously stressed, often with the immense additional worry of providing for and protecting a young family.
By definition an asylum seeker is someone ‘out of their country and not holding a permanent visa while awaiting assessment of their status’.
Bridge clients are tremendously stressed, often with the immense additional worry of providing for and protecting a young family.
Sleeping in shifts
Without a place to call home they share beds and only sleep when others aren’t.
Our client has been deserted by her husband and must fend for five young ones.
Sleeping in shifts
Without a place to call home they share beds and only sleep when others aren’t.
Our client has been deserted by her husband and must fend for five young ones.
Volunteer managed
Bridge is managed by volunteers. With no office costs and minimal compliance and administrative overheads, your donations go directly to those intended (download our Annual Report).
Volunteer managed
Bridge is managed by volunteers. With no office costs and minimal compliance and administrative overheads, your donations go directly to those intended (download our Annual Report).
Bridge clients come from near and far, including:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burundi, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine and Yemen
Bridge raises the funds
to help asylum seekers who have been assessed eligible by the facilitating organisations we have contracted in service agreements, such as the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown. As the fund-raiser and comptroller, Bridge enables these organisations to focus on their ‘gatekeeper’ responsibilities.
It was 118, now they need 162 days
on average that Bridge needs to help a client before they determinedly begin to make their own way in their new homeland. Worringly, this rate is lengthening as government cuts leave people with nowhere else to turn to.
Bridge clients live in
28 Local Government Areas across greater Sydney and NSW, with most residing in Sydney’s western suburbs. Those seeking asylum cannot move to cheaper accommodation in regional areas during the application process as they must remain close to Department of Home Affairs’ offices and to their legal representatives.
Homeless and helpless
Sadly, we can offer only meagre rental support with our funding stretched at providing just $80 per week. This amounts to almost nothing in a ferocious Sydney market. In extreme cases where clients can’t be housed by a community member or by an asylum seeker organisation, private rental or shelters are the only option. Disturbingly, people end up sharing rooms with strangers, sleeping in ‘shifts’ or anywhere they can lie down.
Bridge clients come from near and far, including:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burundi, China, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine and Yemen
Bridge raises the funds
to help asylum seekers who have been assessed eligible by the facilitating organisations we have contracted in service agreements, such as the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown. As the fund-raiser and comptroller, Bridge enables these organisations to focus on their ‘gatekeeper’ responsibilities.
It was 118, now they need 162 days
on average that Bridge needs to help a client before they determinedly begin to make their own way in their new homeland. Worringly, this rate is lengthening as government cuts leave people with nowhere else to turn to.
Bridge clients live in
28 Local Government Areas across greater Sydney and NSW, with most residing in Sydney’s western suburbs. Those seeking asylum cannot move to cheaper accommodation in regional areas during the application process as they must remain close to Department of Home Affairs’ offices and to their legal representatives.
Homeless and helpless
Sadly, we can offer only meagre rental support with our funding stretched at providing just $80 per week. This amounts to almost nothing in a ferocious Sydney market. In extreme cases where clients can’t be housed by a community member or by an asylum seeker organisation, private rental or shelters are the only option. Disturbingly, people end up sharing rooms with strangers, sleeping in ‘shifts’ or anywhere they can lie down.
Bridge can’t just stand by. Care to stand with us?
Desperate for a roof, women and children are forced to stay where danger can lurk.
No place for children
Bridge can’t just stand by. Care to stand with us?
Desperate for a roof, women and children are forced to stay where danger can lurk.
No place for children
Benjamin: Bridge for Asylum Seekers is one of the most enduring and longest-running organisations assisting asylum seekers in Australia.
What’s crucial about their work is that the money goes directly to the asylum seekers themselves, for daily and ongoing essentials they need for survival.
Benjamin Law author, journalist and Bridge Amabassador
Freelancer to national dailies and author: “The Family Law”; “Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East”.
Benjamin Law author, journalist and Bridge Amabassador
Freelancer to national dailies and author: “The Family Law”; “Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East”.
Benjamin: Bridge for Asylum Seekers is one of the most enduring and longest-running organisations assisting asylum seekers in Australia.
What’s crucial about their work is that the money goes directly to the asylum seekers themselves, for daily and ongoing essentials they need for survival.
Sister Susan: I am honoured to be an ambassador for Bridge as it provides the fairness, compassion and ingenuity that so many asylum seekers’ welfare depends upon.
Bridge’s contribution to Australian integrity, when powerful interests are playing on Australian fears to refugees as easy scapegoats, has never been more necessary—sadly.
Sister Susan Connelly Josephite Sister and frontline religious leader
“My ‘arrest’ in Prime Minister Turnbull’s office was an enormously Eucharistic moment.”
Sister Susan Connelly Josephite Sister and frontline religious leader
“My ‘arrest’ in Prime Minister Turnbull’s office was an enormously Eucharistic moment.”
Sister Susan: I am honoured to be an ambassador for Bridge as it provides the fairness, compassion and ingenuity that so many asylum seekers’ welfare depends upon.
Bridge’s contribution to Australian integrity, when powerful interests are playing on Australian fears to refugees as easy scapegoats, has never been more necessary—sadly.